Birds of Summer (17 page)

In the Jensens’ large, comfortably shabby living room, the Fishers were waiting. Galya and Jerry were standing near the door. Nicky was sprawled on one of the couches, and in the corner, Marina and Sparrow were clutching each others’ hands and looking tragic.

“Summer, honey.” Galya’s jangling bracelets and smothering hugs were the same as always, and even Jerry’s normal scowl seemed a little more benevolent than usual. “Now don’t you worry,” Galya was saying. “We’re going to do everything we can to see that you and Sparrow get home real soon. We’re working on it, aren’t we, Jerry?”

It seemed that whether or not the Fishers had forgiven Oriole for taking up with Angelo, they weren’t holding it against Summer and Sparrow. But nothing was said about Oriole, and there was no opportunity to ask questions. Releasing Summer from her hug, Galya swooped down on Sparrow; Sparrow and Marina began to cry in unison, and Jerry disappeared out the door. In the total confusion that followed, Nicky was suddenly standing beside Summer.

“Hang in there,” he said. “Everything’s going to be all right.” He kissed her so quickly she didn’t even have time to decide whether or not to kiss back. He went out the door, and a moment later the Fishers were gone, Sparrow was sobbing in the corner, and Mrs. Jensen was bustling through the room with a dustmop.

Back in their room, Summer comforted Sparrow and got her started playing with some plastic horses before she went out into the back yard. The Jensens, whose own kids were now grown up, had a kid oriented yard—large and dusty and full of beat-up play equipment. Pulling a lounge chair into the shade of the high wall, Summer stretched out on her stomach, her book propped in front of her. She read page fifteen over three times before she gave up.

She’d been trying not to think. It had been easy at first. When they’d first arrived at the Jensens’ custodial home, early yesterday morning, she’d been groggy from being up almost all night and from the pain pills the ambulance attendant had insisted she take before he cleaned and bandaged her knees and elbows. She’d fallen asleep immediately and awakened hours later, feeling woozy and unreal. The rest of that first day had slipped by like a half-remembered dream—meals in the big family room, being chatted at by the grandmotherly Mrs. Jensen and the constant confusion of the Jensens’ girls’ room, where Sparrow and Marina were staging a dramatic day-long celebration of their reunion and Fritzie was always on the lookout for a sounding board for her personal horror stories. When the day was finally over, darkness had brought quick and long-lasting oblivion.

This morning, right after breakfast, there’d been the talk with Nicky. When she’d started to leave the family room with Sparrow, he’d asked her to stay; and when they were alone, he’d moved to the chair next to hers. He wanted to talk about Adam.

It wasn’t surprising that Adam and Nicky had disagreed about what to do about Angelo, since they had always disagreed about everything; but this time it had almost cost Adam his life. Nicky had wanted to go to the police, but Adam had said it would be too dangerous because it would be impossible to know where everyone would be and what they would be doing when the raid started. His plan was for the Fishers to take care of Angelo themselves. They would steal a gun—Bart was often careless with his—and get the drop on Angelo.

“It was crazy,” Nicky said.
“Shoot Out at the OK Corral,
with Adam and me being the guys in the white hats. Just like we used to play when we were kids, only this time with real guns and bullets. But Adam—God, Summer—he didn’t seem to be afraid at all. He kept insisting we could do it, if I’d help him.”

But Nicky wouldn’t agree. And neither of them could talk to Jerry about it because he was too frightened about what might happen to Marina. So then Nicky had decided to take matters into his own hands. Last week when it had again been his turn to go into town and do his “everything’s normal at the Fishers’ act,” he’d called the sheriff’s office.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Summer had asked. “You promised.”

“I promised I’d try to,” Nicky said. “I went to Pardells’ looking for you, but you weren’t there. And then Angelo took me home. There was no way I could get to the trailer; and besides, what good would it have done if I’d told you. I couldn’t tell you when the raid would be, because I didn’t know.”

It was the truth, or at least a part of it. But of course the other part was that Nicky had been afraid of what would have happened if she’d told Oriole. Afraid that Oriole would have betrayed her oldest and best friends to her latest lover.

After that, for a little while, Summer found it hard to listen; but as Nicky went on, his face tense with horror, she found herself living the raid as he had lived it. Just as he had feared, both Angelo and Bart had been in the house when it began. There was the screeching of an alarm and a sudden roaring bark from the doberman, followed almost immediately by Jude pounding up the steps and into the house. And then Adam had grabbed Jude’s gun, and Jude had his hands up and was begging Adam not to shoot him and saying how he hadn’t wanted to do anything to hurt the Fishers, but Angelo had made him do it. Then Angelo came in the door, and when Adam turned toward him—Angelo had fired. Nicky had seen Adam fall, and it wasn’t until much later when it was all over, with Angelo wounded by police gunfire and in custody along with Bart and Jude, that he learned that Adam would not die.

“How long was that?” she asked. “Until it was all over?”

“I don’t know for sure. Maybe only a half hour.” Nicky’s eyes looked blind—as if they were still seeing nothing except that long thirty minutes. His voice caught as he said, “It seemed like—forever.”

It was obvious that Nicky blamed himself for what happened to Adam. His familiar face, deep-eyed and lean like Jerry’s, but with Galya’s wide, full-lipped mouth, looked suddenly much older. Older and full of pain. Of course Summer told him that he shouldn’t blame himself, that if he’d agreed to try Adam’s plan, things might have turned out much worse. He wasn’t ready to listen yet, but she told him anyhow. And then, without knowing she was going to, she kissed him. It was a very short kiss because the Jensens’ family room was about as private as Grand Central Station, but it seemed to do more good than anything she’d been able to say.

But now the Fishers were back home and only Summer and Sparrow were still at the Jensens’, along with Bobby, whose mother had abandoned him, and Fritzie, whose father beat her with a broom handle. It was anybody’s guess how long they would have to stay. There could be days and days in the Jensens’ Naugahyde family room eating Wonder Bread and fried potatoes and watching
Lawrence Welk
and
Walt Disney Presents
on the TV, and endless nights in the “girls’ room” with its linoleum floor that smelled of disinfectant and three sets of metal bunk beds, while other kids whose parents were in jail or who beat them, came and went and—like Fritzie—came again.

Whose parents were in jail … Summer rolled over on her back and put her arm across her eyes, trying to shut out a picture of Oriole. A picture of Oriole alone in a dark cell—a cell from an illustration in a book she’d once read—perhaps,
Les Miserables
or
The Count of Monte Cristo.
Stone walls, a narrow bunk and a tiny barred window, with the ragged, bearded figure of the illustration replaced by another thin, pale prisoner, her face furrowed with deep wrinkles and her bright hair turned thin and gray. Other pictures came then—Oriole playing games with Sparrow on the trailer floor—singing “Gentle on My Mind” as she kneaded bread at the kitchen table—on a picnic with flowers in her hair.

She sat up suddenly, her fists clenched. The summoned anger flamed like an opened furnace, burning away the tears that had started to flood her eyes. “Damn her,” she whispered. “God damn her.”

It wasn’t until then that she suddenly thought of the Olivers. In all the time, almost thirty-six hours since the raid had started, the Olivers had not entered her mind. Away in Connecticut buying their new home, they had disappeared from her thoughts as well. But now suddenly they returned, just as they would return before long to gather up all their many belongings and leave Alvarro Bay forever. And just as suddenly Summer knew what she was going to do.

It was no more than fifteen minutes later, and she was still sitting on the edge of the lounge chair, thinking and planning, when Mrs. Jensen appeared at the back door.

“Summer,” she called. “Come here. You have visitors.”

She couldn’t think who it might be, and under the circumstances she certainly couldn’t think whom she would want it to be. She supposed most of Alvarro Bay knew by now about what had happened, so it might be almost anyone. She hoped it wouldn’t be someone like Haley and her mother, full of condolences and curiosity.

For some reason she never thought of the Pardells until she walked into the living room, although as soon as she heard what they were there for, she wasn’t at all surprised. It was just like Meg and Pardell to take on two more stray cats and then pretend to blame each other for it.

T
HE SCENE AT THE
Food Mart was just about what she’d expected. It was the first time she’d been downtown since she and Sparrow had moved in with the Pardells, and left to her own devices, she’d have put it off even longer. In another week or two, some other local scandal might have occurred to take people’s minds off the big pot bust at the Fishers’. So when Meg said she needed help with the shopping because of the crutches, Summer was anything but enthusiastic. She’d even thought of offering Sparrow’s services, but Marina had just arrived for a visit so that was out. She’d agreed to go very reluctantly.

“I really appreciate this, Summer,” Meg said as they were pulling up in front of the Mart. “And I’m sure Arnie will, too. After last week, I’ve been afraid he was about to revoke my license to operate a grocery cart in his store.”

“Why? What happened last week?”

“I had one of those wobbly wheeled carts, and when I tried to turn the corner with one hand, it went out of control and sideswiped a display of strawberry jam. Then, while I was grabbing at falling jam jars, I dropped my crutch and clobbered a small fortune’s worth of instant coffee.”

So, of course, Summer said she was glad to help, and while Meg concentrated on her shopping, Summer pushed the grocery cart and tried to ignore the stares. Since it was midweek, most of the shoppers were local people, and it was immediately apparent that everyone in Alvarro Bay knew all about the raid and everybody involved. The stares varied from curious to hostile to sympathetic. As usual, it was the sympathetic that she hated most. If Arnie had only known ahead of time, he could have advertised. “All you locals who’ve enjoyed feeling sorry for the poor McIntyre kids all these years, drop in tomorrow for a real bargain basement special.”

She hadn’t thought Meg had noticed, but when they were on the way home, she suddenly said, “It takes a thick hide, doesn’t it? That’s the way with life in a small town. There’s no comfortable shell of anonymity, so we all have to grow our own.” She leaned over then and patted Summer’s arm. “But don’t let it get too thick, honey. There’ll be times and places when it won’t be necessary any longer.”

Summer nodded, smiling stiffly. “I know,” she said. And to herself she added that her own time for small towns, and the thick hides they made necessary, would be over very soon, if everything worked out according to her plans.

As they pulled into the yard, Pardell was playing football on the front lawn with Sparrow and Marina and Patrick, the eight-year-old kid from next door. Pardell was flat on his face under a stack of squirming kids, but when he saw the car he got up and walked over to the driveway, with Sparrow and Marina still clinging to him like a couple of leeches.

“Alan,” Meg said. “I thought you were going to get some work done this afternoon while the girls were out of the study.”

Pardell grinned. “That was the plan, wasn’t it. But first things first. My duty as an educator called, and I answered.”

“An educator?”

“Absolutely. Sparrow and Marina came in for a little chat, and I discovered that their education has been sadly neglected. Here they are pushing eight years old and completely ignorant of the basic principles of the great sport of football.”

“But they’re little girls,” Meg said.

Pardell looked down at the kids and raised his shaggy eyebrows in a surprised expression—as if he’d just noticed. “Well, so they are,” he said. “But a pair of promising first string tackles, nevertheless.” He shook his leg gently, detaching Marina who was still clutching his ankle. “Okay, team. On your feet. The play’s over.” He tossed the football to Patrick. “Call the next play, quarterback, while I take in the groceries.”

It wasn’t until he came into the kitchen with the last two bags that he suddenly thumped his forehead and said. “I nearly forgot. You got some mail, Summer. A letter and a postcard. On the dining room table.”

The letter was postmarked Ukiah and was addressed to Summer in Oriole’s disjointed, childish handwriting. Summer took it into her room, or rather into Pardell’s study, before she opened it.

My Beautiful Babies,

I’ve just heard the news. I’ve always thought that Meg and Alan Pardell were just about the most beautiful people in Alvarro Bay, and now I know it. I’m so happy and relieved. I was really freaking out, sitting here all day thinking about my Beautiful Babies shut up in some kind of Kiddie Jail just because their dumb mother doesn’t know how to pick her friends.

Don’t worry about me. This place isn’t exactly the Taj Mahal, but it’s not as bad as it could be. The food’s pretty plastic but there’s plenty of it, and there are books to read and once in a while even TV. I’ve been talking to Greg Allbright, he’s the Fishers’ lawyer and he’s going to represent me, too. Isn’t that great! He’s a great lawyer and a really beautiful human being, and Galya is going to take care of his fee for the time being and I’ll pay her back later. Greg thinks that I’ll be a good witness and that the jury will see that I wasn’t really involved in what was going on at the Fishers’, and find me not guilty.

I miss you both like crazy, and I’m really counting the days until we’re all back again in our trailer in the free, clean forest air.

Summer, why don’t you get a dozen real nice roses and give them to Meg Pardell from me and tell her how much I appreciate what she’s doing. And maybe you could ask her if she’s coming to Ukiah to bring you kids along so we could have a visit. It may be a few weeks yet before the trial comes up, and I’m really going to be climbing the walls if I don’t get to see my babies before then.

Hoping to see you real soon,

Your loving Oriole